It’s Sunday night, and I was sitting here trying to watch the Oscars, but I haven’t seen any of these movies, so it’s kind of lame.  Apparently my connection with current cinema is lacking!

Anyway, I was thinking that I need to come up with something to write on my blog, and coming up totally blank.

Then I remembered how way back when I started this blog I had the intentions of sharing something very special with all of my readers.   Something amazing. 

So, without further ado, I am giving you…..

my cleaning schedule.

or

at least, the method behind my cleaning schedule. 

My  schedule would be of no good to any of you, because it is personalized for me.  What I’m going to share is how I created my cleaning schedule, so, if you’re actually interested, you can make your own.

Here’s the back story: 

I’m not positive if it was the third child, the jump from homeschooling a kindergartner to homeschooling a first grader, or some combo of the two, but about a year and a half ago I was freaking out.  I couldn’t get it all done.  No matter how hard I tried, it was impossible.  I felt like my house was always a disaster, and when I did find time to clean, the to do list was so overwhelming I didn’t even want to try. 

So, out of complete desperation, I decided to make a schedule.  This was a first for me.  Up until this point I had never needed a schedule to keep up with anything.  It was a little depressing.  But I just couldn’t take the chaos anymore.

Here is the method I used:

1. Make a list of every single thing that needs to be done in your house.  EVERYTHING.  Dishes, laundry, bills, organizing, cleaning doorknobs.  Everything that matters to you.  Try to break the jobs down so that most things will individually take no longer than 15-20 minutes.

2. Now make four lists: daily, weekly, monthly, and bi-monthly.  Divide your tasks accordingly.  Some examples from my list:  Daily-dishes, laundry, sweeping.  Weekly-clean the bathrooms, dust the living room, bills.  Monthly-organize the schoolroom, filing, vacuuming the couches.  Bi-monthly- cleaning the blinds, cleaning the heater vents, cleaning doors and walls.

Try to keep in mind the absolute longest amount of time you would want to pass between a job getting done, and assign a little closer than that.  That way if you miss it one time you don’t have to feel bad about waiting to do it until it comes up again.

(Okay, just a pause here: I am enjoying the montage of muscials on the Oscars:)

3.  Once you’re jobs are all broken down then you draw out your chart.  There will be two: Month A and Month B.  Each will contain four weeks.  And I only put the days that Hombre works.  That way if I do end up with time to do anything on his days off it’s a chance to get ahead.

Once you’ve drawn this out you just start filling in jobs from your lists (see #2). 

The daily chores I just wrote across the bottom of the page.

Then I started assigning all of the other stuff  to specific days.  I tried to put the jobs I knew would take longer on days that I tend to be home all day.  My main goal was to spread things out in a way so that I could do everything on the given day in about an hour (as in, an hour on top of the daily chores).

Cross the tasks off your lists as you put them on your chart, but remember, if you are writing down a weekly task you need to write it on every week of your chart; monthly you would write on both months, and then bi-monthly on only one of the months.  (I’m trying to make this as clear as possible;).

Once you’ve distributed everything your list is done.

Here’s a sample week from mine:

So, I think that’s it.  This is how you get a cleaning schedule like mine.  Every day you do your daily chores and then whatever is assigned for that day.   The first of the month you flip your schedule (after my schedule was done I typed it all up and printed each month on opposite sides of paper).  If there are five weeks in a month, you do your daily and weekly chores, and have a break from the extras:).

Oh yeah!  And this is really important.  If you miss a day, you DON”T catch it up the next day.  Well, obviously you’ll be playing catch up with the daily chores, but as for the rest, you just do what is on the day you’re on.  Not what you missed the day before; you’ll catch that the next time around.

But wait. There’s more.

I know after seeing this craziness you probably all think I’m just nuts.  Only someone who’s so organized and so good at everything could come up with this ridiculousness.

And that is a little bit why I did it.  But not the big reason.

The big reason was that I wanted to spend more time with my kids.  And I was so overwhelmed by trying to keep up with all of the mess that I was just cleaning every spare moment I had, trying to get it all done, while the kids were being ignored a lot.

So, this schedule gave me a way to get everything done, but more importantly, it set limits for me. 

By making such a detailed schedule I am assured that everything that needs to get done will get done.  But I am only allowed to do what is on the schedule for that day.  The rest of the stuff waits.  Which means the house is never perfectly clean.  But that’s okay, because I know it really is all clean, just not all spotless at exactly the same time.  It’s taken some relaxing on my part, but now this really works for me. 

I don’t know if this will be helpful to anyone,  but it has helped me.  And as long as you all don’t think I’m totally crazy that’s good enough:)

***One more thing***  People always say “I can’t do that until I get my house all caught up and then I can follow a schedule.   NO.  This is not true. 

Make the schedule, and just jump right in.  Do what’s on the list for that day and that’s it.  It may take two full months (or even longer), but you’re house will get “caught up”.  I promise.  How do you think I’ve become so good at recovering from disasters

My links this week are really  good, so you beter not skip them!

Here’s a reminder that some of those things we (I) blow off as unlikely do in fact happen.

Look here and see the most out of control meal you’ve ever witnessed in you life.  Seriously, I am not a low-fat, no dessert kind of girl, but this is ridiculous.  Who eats this stuff?

I love what this post is encouraging women to do, and can say from experience the more you do it, the easier it gets.

And for a little perspective, do what I did….read this…

wait a few minutes and ponder (I had to wait a whole day)  then read this…

then wrap up by reading this. 

Finally, I promised last week that I would share some pics from our awesome Valentine’s Day party, so here you go.

Happy weekend!

Sorry I disappeared again this week.  I just can’t seem to keep up with everything lately.  Oh well. 

It was a busy week, most importantly because Miss A had a birthday. 

She requested a Little House on the Prairie party, which was a great thrill to me because I’ve hosted enough Dora and Disney parties to last me a lifetime!  And she requested that we have the party at Grammy’s “country house”.  This also was fine with me because Grammy’s house comes with all kinds of “little house” decor:

So, over the long weekend we had our prairie party.

Everyone was asked to dress in their best prairie attire, so I made the girls some festive new skirts using this tutorial.  They were pretty simple (which is good because I’m definitely no pro when it comes to sewing), and most importantly they twirl really well.

The party was lots of fun.  All of the girls recieved an apron as a favor, and the boys a bandana.

I was really amazed at how much the kids loved the simple games we played.  I was so worried they would think it was boring, but everyone was very enthusiastic about dropping clothespins in a jar and guessing “who’s got the button?” .

Miss A was totally excited about her big surpise…a new bike.

Grammy made everyone some adorable little house sugar cookies to take home, and they worked great for decorating the cake too.

Then we got to enjoy live fiddle music and dancing!  (again I was surprised at the kids enthusiasm)

Everyone also got to pet a chicken, which is totally exciting.

The party was a huge success (Miss A was a sobbing mess at the end of the day if that is any indication of loads of fun…;) .

On to the rest of the week…

a couple of days later was Miss A’s actual birthday. 

Hombre promised her whatever she wanted for breakfast, but when she woke up asking for french toast we made the tragic discovery that there was no bread available.

SO,

We had a glamorous birthday breakfast at Jack in the Box.  I love how awesome the girls thought this was.

Then Hombre went to work and the girls and I went on a little shopping trip to Target with some birthday money.

Very exciting.

I’m happy to say Miss A had a fabulous birthday week. 

I can’t believe she is seven.  That seems very old to me.  Very big kid and not little girl.  Having a big kid is turning out to be a lot of fun.  She’s starting to not always think I’m so cool, which is a little depressing.  But she’s very eager (and becoming very capable) to help around the house, so that is awesome! 

I was looking at her the other day and this image of her baby face flashed in my mind…I can’t believe how much she’s grown.  It’s pretty amazing getting to know her over and over again as she grows and changes.  She’s one special girl!

I don’t have a ton of links for you today…everybody’s been posting Valentine’s stuff all week, and I figure by now if you haven’t done any of it you’re not going to so….

Here’s a few:

This post has a bunch of random stuff, but if you scroll to the end I really like MckMama’s version of personal pizzas for the kids.

If you don’t have a babysitter lined up for a romantic evening, maybe you could try out a family date night.

If you do want something crafty and valentine-y to do, this would be a fun project to get started on for next year…I think we might have to try it.

And finally, because I’m out of exciting links for you, here’s a romantic little flashback:

On February 13, 1999, Hombre and I had been dating exactly one month.  It was a crazy month in my life and the fact that he was there for it made me sure that my life would be over if he was ever not there again.  At the time I was obsessed with this song.  It’s kind of a dumb song, but I think I was just really stuck on that one line… “wanna get married, and run away”.   As much as I dreamed of it, I never thought we would actually be married one day.  God is full of sweet surprises!

Happy Valentine’s Day!